Recent studies have shown that the inrease in the 5 year survival from breast cancer is closely associated with early detection of the tumor. This detection has been achieved primarily through screening of asymptomatic patients. The mass screening technique presently employed included clinical examination including palpation of the breast, mammography and thermography. The use of all three diagnostic modalities in concert yields a true positive detection rate of about 92 to 94% accuracy while the individual group positive rates vary from about 70 to 80%. The use of all three diagnostic techniques in tandem however is not without certain drawbacks both as regards the expense and time consumed in diagnosis and further has been recently pointed out to involve certain risks to the patient being diagnosed.
It has been alleged by several cancer experts that 5 years of mammograms with X-rays will eventually cause as many breast cancers as it detects and therefore represents an unjustifiable risk to the more than 300,000 women who will be participating in 27 breast cancer detection projects sponsored by the National Cancer Institute and various private groups across the nation.
Therefore it is now generally admitted that certain serious risks exist with the use of mammography in breast cancer detection and diagnosis. Alternatively the use of thermography alone has been considered since it has no associated irradiation and is relatively inexpensive. However it is not accurate and has a false positive rate as high as 40% in symptomatic patients and from 10 to 25% in asymptomatic patients. Thus for mass screening purposes both mammography and thermography demonstrate very substantial drawbacks and limitations.